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#1: diane v (dmv) on Sep 6, 2017

Really nice pic overall. It was fairly easy until the very end, when it got difficult with random red/black/blue dots. It turns out there are multiple solutions.

It would be simple to make this logically solvable. It's too nice a puzzle to get lost with the unsolvable junk out there.

Found to require lots of guessing by gator.

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I couldn't figure out how to make it easier. what are your suggestions? I only found one other way to solve it, and it didn't significantly change the picture.

Go to your list of puzzles, then click on edit for this puzzle. At the bottom of the page you will see a box with the word check in it. Click on this box and it will show you where the trouble spots are. You can then tweak your puzzle here and there until checking it brings back good results and tells you your puzzle is solvable without guessing. Every puzzle maker should learn to use this check box. It's a valuable tool.

^ To add to what Norma said, the checker will say "Toggle Alternate Solution", which you can click repeatedly to see which sections have multiple solutions.

It may help to make a couple more of the ashes red, but you'll need to either move a few or add more.

I did that repeatedly. I got down to two that were guesses. but every time i tried to change it, adding, subtracting, or changing/adding color, it made it worse. the red that i did add helped. I've considered removing the black dots entirely...?

Ash! You're in the PNW, then? Me too. Ash everywhere, and I'm hours from the nearest fire. Hoping for a steady, sustained shower in the next few days to wash it out of the air.

Maybe add more dots, that are in line with each other? So for instance, one column could have 3 dots of ash, which might make them easier to place.

If you guys think it's worth it, I guess I can keep trying.

New version published by mom24plus.

This is still too hard, but I couldn't manually solve to check it until I published it. Grrr, this learning curve is sharp!

Keep at it Koreen. It's tedious and frustrating but it's also part of the fun of creating. This is too nice of an image to not make it right. What I sometimes do is fill in a large area and then remove 5 pixels at a time then check until it says it's solvable. Then add one at a time and check every time until you get an image that your happy with and is still solvable by line or colour logic alone. It's a lot of work but worth it. Have fun. :)

Thanks, Aldege. I was thinking along those lines for the next puzzle, but your suggestion fine-tunes it. It's nice to learn from others' experience!

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The extra tree really helped! It was frustrating not to be able to save it along the way (it kept filling every white space with a dot), but as far as I can tell it's logically solvable now. Does the checker tell you that?

If you go back and look at some of my earliest puzzles, you'll see that I published and republished multiple times before I was happy with the outcome. I learned not to check the "ready to publish" box until I was done with *all* the changes!

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Thanks for the encouragement, everyone. LOVE the link, lol! #16 I'm glad you like the trees, I wondered if I should fill more in to make it a little easier to solve, but since I was forced to publish before I could manually solve it, I left them alone. :)

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Lovely image, Koreen. Too tough for me to solve, so I just resorted to relying on the red dot to guide me to the finish.

Funny link, Wombat. Thanks. :-D

Gator's comment brought to mind something a wise man once said. "A single grain of rice can tip the scale." (It was the emperor in Disney's "Mulan".) Although he was referring to a soldier in the war, ultimately foreshadowing Mulan's role in the victory, sometimes one pixel really is all it takes to make your puzzle as swift as a coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, having all the strength of a raging fire, and as mysterious as the dark side of the moon. Be a puzzle warrior!

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Thanks, Derby. I really did want a tougher puzzle. (perhaps not quite this difficult) I enjoy the quickie puzzles, but have often searched out the most difficult ones in the database

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